Branded Bullies: Why We Cheer for the Worst People

Bullies become heroes when we redefine what powerful means.

Being the first born has its advantages, but it also makes you the designated defender against any bullies attacking your siblings. If a neighborhood kid tripped my brother or pulled my sister’s hair in my presence, I needed to step in because I was the oldest. Unfortunately, I’m the textbook definition of physically small and I have no appetite for brawling, so while other kids flailed with their pint-sized fists, I tried to fight with punchy words and barely understood psychology. It rarely worked.

Thankfully, as I matured and my size no longer mattered, I learned how to deal with bullies in more effective ways. But to this day I maintain a deep-seated disgust of them. Or, as Kendrick Lamar might put it: I hate them like I’m young.

The Rise and Fall of Bullies

I doubt anyone reading this post needs a tutorial on bullies. They’re so commonplace, they are a recurring character in cartoons, even those intended for toddlers. Since I’ve always thought of these oafs as bad guys, I’ve been surprised to see them become popular with a notable segment of the population. Some quick research enlightened me. Apparently bullies aren’t always the enemy. They’ve fallen in and out of favor for eons. Even early Roman crowds cheered gladiators’ brutality.

When people feel vulnerable, whether from economic, environmental, or technological disruptions, they crave leaders who seem unbreakable, even if that means tolerating cruelty. In short, bullies become heroes when we redefine what powerful means.

Bullying is not only valued right now, it’s also supercharged due to innovations in communication technology. In my parent’s day, the schoolyard bully required others’ physical presence in order to have influence. Mass media broadcast the hate speech of strongmen like Joseph McCarthy but still served as gatekeepers. In contrast, social media has few if any restrictions, and with the advent of algorithms, now serves as a fuel source for the care and feeding of bullies.

Anyone with a smartphone can potentially reach millions without institutional filters or professional standards. The acts of humiliation don’t fade with memory or require archival research to resurrect. To make matters worse, platforms actively promote content that triggers strong emotional responses, creating financial incentives for increasingly aggressive behavior.

These differences have transformed bullying from a troubling episodic phenomenon into a sustainable business model and a winning political strategy. Today’s aggressors operate within an ecosystem specifically designed to reward and amplify their most provocative behavior—a system that converts outrage into currency more efficiently than any previous technology. They’ve even learned to brand themselves, creating an entire aesthetic around their aggression.

The Bully Brand

A bully builds a brand to make people feel rather than think. They include elements that make the transgression of social norms seem necessary, while their bravado creates the comforting illusion that someone powerful is fighting for “our side.” This feeling helps counterbalance the moral discomfort of supporting a bad guy.

We currently have a bevy of branded bullies offering this type of emotional transaction, each building their fan bases through continual and competitive demonstrations of aggressive behavior.

Elon Musk doesn’t just fire employees. He demeans them on X, ensuring his fanboys turn their misfortune into a meme. Bill Maher publicly ridicules and dismisses those who disagree with him. Tucker Carlson uses mockery, selective outrage, and exaggerated dominance to belittle opponents and discredit his critics.

Arguably the biggest branded bully right now is the President of the United States. Donald Trump doesn’t quietly dismiss his enemies. He gives them nicknames, mocks them in speeches, and encourages his supporters to pile on. His persona shields his brutality behind the image of a fighter who takes down “the weak.”

These bullies are all performative. Their aggression is framed not as cruelty but as refreshing honesty in a world that is fake. Each creates an environment where their anger becomes an expectation, a ritual, and a shared experience. The antagonism is real but it’s also strategic. Their end game is reinforcing their status as the ruler of their chosen kingdom.

The Chink in a Bully’s Armor

If you’re in a bully’s orbit, your choices narrow quickly: laugh along, stay quiet and invisible, or risk becoming the next target. I genuinely sympathize with those trapped in these tight spaces. A young single mom has little choice but to tolerate her intimidating boss. A coder in the US on an H-1B visa can’t speak up against an overly aggressive CEO. A liberal-leaning politician elected in a red state must choose battles carefully.

But the rest of us? If we’re not actively working to outsmart bullies, we should be honest enough to admit that we’ve become part of their audience. We’ve become spectators who buy their “product,” who fuel their behavior by cheering or laughing, or who tolerate it by looking away and hoping for the best.

If you’re tired of watching bullies and would like to see this era of their supremacy end, understanding effective resistance is a start. The tools that worked against traditional bullying have limited effect against platforms designed to monetize aggression itself. We might cheer a mass protest and welcome institutional shaming, but these old school tactics barely make a dent in social media audiences. To see these temporary heroes return to their proper role as villains requires new tools and new techniques.

Erode their Credibility. A bully who’s built a brand on inauthentic values and behaviors is vulnerable to evidence that contradicts that image. Shared proof of hypocrisy is a Rapid Pass to irrelevance if it can be substantiated. Bill O’Reilly, once the king of cable news, built his identity as a brash, no-nonsense conservative warrior championing traditional values. Journalists exposed his less than moral behavior and Fox News cut ties.

The most direct approach—calling out an aggressor in the moment—can be surprisingly effective but requires courage. Bullies expect affirming nods from people unwilling to challenge them. A calm, public rebuke forces them to defend themselves with logic rather than intimidation. Janet Mills, the Governor of Maine, responded to Trump’s taunting about transgender athletes with a curt “See you in court.” That simple statement demonstrated this technique perfectly by showing she trusted the legal system and wasn’t intimidated.

Make Fans Embarrassed. If fans feel uneasy about someone they’ve idolized, they start to dissociate from that person. This isn’t about attacking head-on (which often strengthens the brand). Instead, it’s about highlighting what is genuinely unappealing about a bully through accurate and visible assessment.

Nothing punctures the illusion of power faster than laughter. Tyrants want to be taken seriously and rarely can laugh at themselves. That makes humor a potent weapon, particularly if it taps into what viewers already sense, like incompetence, insecurity, or faked toughness, and exaggerates it. The most devastating comedy doesn’t tell people what to think; it simply makes visible what is hiding in plain sight. SNL does this well. So does Trae Crowder.

Give Them More Rope. Ignoring a bully is the surest way to goad them into overstepping. Performative intimidators thrive on engagement. They poke and provoke, hoping for a reaction they can use to reinforce their dominance. If a strongman demands a response and gets nothing, they fear losing control of the narrative. This can spur them to take risks that are unwise.

If forced to escalate, they often reveal their true nature or cross lines even their supporters find uncomfortable. We saw this with Alex Jones, whose increasingly outlandish claims about the Sandy Hook shooting eventually alienated all but his most devoted followers and led to devastating legal and financial consequences.

Patience Remains a Virtue

The right kind of exposure can puncture a bully’s brand and begin their inevitable descent, but a single revelation rarely shifts entrenched perception. One governor standing firm or one comedian landing a pointed joke creates ripples, not waves. Individual resistance matters, but collective action transforms the landscape.

I understand if your reaction to these suggestions starts with a sigh of exhaustion. If you don’t want to get in the fray, you have other options. You can support those who are willing to put up a sustained, intelligent resistance to bullying. You can make sure you aren’t following any bullies. You can contribute to politicians who call this behavior out. You can laugh loudly when a bully is the deserving butt of a good joke.

If diverse voices persist over time with consistent messaging, the dynamic fundamentally changes. The bully suddenly faces not an isolated opponent but a resilient community. This realization doesn’t just challenge their tactics. It undermines the foundation of their power.

The common counterargument that devoted followers won’t hear criticisms or see flaws because they exist in information bubbles only holds when we limit our vision to traditional channels. Influential voices with diverse fans can penetrate these barriers. Figures like Scott Galloway, Mark Cuban, Selena Gomez, MrBeast and others like them reach audiences that span political and cultural divides. They don’t need to win the case; they only need to start the conversation. A flailing bully is a doomed bully.

The bullies I encountered in my childhood neighborhood have reappeared throughout my life in boardrooms, political arenas, and now online. I was wrong to see them as archetypal villains; they are more like seasonal insects emerging once conditions favor them. They rise when championed by audiences seeking certainty in uncertain times and fall when their contradictions become impossible to ignore. They may be recurring characters in our cultural story, but they remain, at their core, fragile.

Confronting today’s branded bullies doesn’t require matching their aggression. It demands strategic patience and collective resilience. If we accept that perception shapes reality, that consistent pressure exposes weakness, and that communities out power individuals, we have a blueprint for effective resistance. The timeline may be longer than we’d prefer, but the outcome isn’t in question. Bullies will always overreach, overplay, and ultimately recede. The question is never if they’ll fail—it’s when.

Your Turn

I feel like I’ve only skimmed the surface on the topic of bullies. I’m sure there are entire dissertations written on this subject. But it’s a start and you can add to it.

1. Did a bully have any impact on your life? If so, how did you get free of his or her influence?

2. Are there people you follow or watch who rely on bullying tactics to build their brand? Why do you pay attention to them?

3. What strategies have you seen counter bullying behavior in your professional or personal life? Can these approaches scale to address broader cultural or political bullying?

   If you feel this post should be shared with others, please hit the ❤️ “Like” button below. That tells the algorithms to promote it to others.

If you’re new here, one of those algorithms probably guided you. In that case, I recommend you confirm who I am, where my expertise lies, and what biases I may bring to my posts. If you want to read more, my foundational post, The Hidden Influence of Branding in American Politics is a good starting point.